Thursday, March 28, 2024

‘This sort of thing is good for the town’: Sidney brewery gets approved for an outdoor patio

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Another outdoor patio is slated to open in Sidney after receiving approval.

Beacon Brewing will soon be able to build a small outdoor patio, which will be a welcome addition to the business since their neighbours at Small Gods Brewing have already had outdoor seating for quite some time. 

Sidney recently conducted public engagement sessions in order to gather community input on the proposal for an outdoor patio at Beacon Brewing located on Third Street. The proposed patio received largely positive feedback and the matter was brought before council on Tuesday, May 23rd. 

“Our desire for this proposed patio has multiple reasons,” said Alexa and Tristan Fetherston, owners of Beacon Brewing. 

“One of them being that Sidney is a very dog friendly town and unfortunately we are not allowed to have dogs in our tasting room, so we miss out on a lot of potential business from customers that have dogs.”

“Another is with the nicer weather arriving soon, we have noticed that people generally prefer to sit on a patio throughout the months they can in our town, and having a patio option will help us continue to see a steady flow of customers, that instead may go somewhere else that allows an outside option in the summer,” the Fethersotons added. 

The two owners stated that many customers have expressed their wish for Beacon Brewing to have a patio and they feel it’s only fair that they have one in order to keep customers coming to them rather than their competition who already have patios.

All residents and businesses within 100 metres of Beacon Brewing were asked for their thoughts on the patio space and of 17 responses, 14 were in favour and three were against it. 

“We would like to support our local brewery Beacon Brewing in having a small patio to accommodate customers at their location on Third Street,” said a resident of Sidney who supports the brewery’s attempt to open a patio similar to Small Gods Brewing just down the road. 

“We live across the street and feel that as many other businesses have been granted to have a small patio in front of their local business, it would be appropriate and fair play to allow them to also have this opportunity.”

Beacon Brewing submitted rendering and drawings of what they want for their patio space which show bar seating between the door and the wide sidewalk space. The seating would allow for an additional eight to 10 people to be served at the business. 

Small Gods Brewing’s patio can seat near 60 people by comparison. 

Sidney’s town council discussed what would be done if the business generated noise complaints after opening a patio at length and reviewed the feedback in their discourse, making sure to look at all angles of the permit application before ultimately passing the amendment. 

“I’m in favour of this,” said Councillor Richard Novek. “There’s already a patio in that area and I don’t have concerns that the noise levels will be excessive.”

“To my knowledge this is a responsible operator and I think this sort of thing is good for the town, it creates activity, it creates action, it acts as a bit of a draw to the downtown core and that’s something that the city needs,” Novek added.

mm
Curtis Blandy
curtis@victoriabuzz.com

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